FACULTY

Biography

Brian Cantwell Smith is Dean and Professor at the Faculty of Information, Professor of Philosophy, Professor of Computer Science, and a member of the Program in Communication, Culture and Technology at the U of T. He holds a Canada Research Chair in the Foundations of Information, and is a Senior Fellow of Massey College, a fellow of University College, and a member of the Trinity College Senior Common Room. Smith conducts research in two broadly-related areas. The first focuses on the conceptual foundations of computation, information, and intentionality (meaning, representation, semantics, symbols, etc.). Attention is also given to the use of computational metaphors in other fields, such as philosophy, psychology, cognitive science, physics, logic, and art. In this work ,Smith emphasizes the inadequacy of our current understanding of computation, and recommends viewing it as an unrestricted site in which to explore fundamental questions about the relation between meaning and mechanism. The results will be published online and on paper (MIT Press) in a 7-volume series, currently in preparation.

The second project, based on lessons learned in the first, involves the development of a systematic metaphysics. The aim is to do justice to the humilities underlying both realism (“there is more to the world than what we think and do”) and constructivism (“the world, including our understanding of it, is ineliminably affected by our projects, perspectives, and ideas”). An initial sketch of the metaphysical story, a co-constitutive account of ontology and epistemology, was published as On the Origin of Objects (MIT Press, 1996). Smith received a doctorate in computer science and artificial intelligence from MIT in 1982. Before moving to the U of T, he was Kimberly J. Jenkins University Professor of Philosophy and New Technologies at Duke University, after teaching cognitive science, computer science, and philosophy at Indiana University. From 1981-1996 he was Principal Scientist at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC), and adjunct professor of philosophy at Stanford University. He was a founder of the Center for the Study of Language and Information at Stanford University (CSLI), a founder and first President of Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility (CPSR), and President of the Society for Philosophy and Psychology (SPP) (1998-99).

Keywords
Conceptual foundations of computation, information, and intentionality, systematic metaphysics